{"id":9301,"date":"2016-07-13T06:49:16","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T06:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=9301"},"modified":"2016-07-13T06:49:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-13T06:49:16","slug":"esa-commits-to-next-stage-of-uk-revolutionary-rocket-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/esa-commits-to-next-stage-of-uk-revolutionary-rocket-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"ESA commits to next stage of UK revolutionary rocket engine"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"SABRE<\/a>
SABRE engine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The UK\u2019s Farnborough airshow on July 12\u00a0saw ESA\u2019s commitment to the next step in developing a revolutionary air-breathing rocket engine that could begin test firings in about four years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine, SABRE, is a unique engine designed to use atmospheric air in the early part of its flight to orbit before switching to rocket mode for its final ascent to space.<\/span><\/p>\n

The UK\u2019s Reaction Engines Ltd has been working on SABRE for many years. Success could lead to<\/span>\u00a0single-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ESA is investing \u20ac10 million in SABRE, joining \u00a350 million from the UK Space Agency. Since 2008, ESA has played an important technical management role.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In 2010, ESA independently reviewed SABRE\u2019s viability, opening the way to UK government investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"SABRE<\/a>
SABRE contract signing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Back in 2012, ESA oversaw the testing of a key element \u2013 the precooler that chills the hot airstream entering the engine at hypersonic speed. To render the air usable by the engine as oxidiser it needs to be cooled from 1000\u00b0C to \u2013150\u00b0C in just a hundredth of a second \u2013 at the same time as avoiding the formation of potentially dangerous ice.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A number of research and development projects followed through ESA, helping to demonstrate the feasibility of other elements, such as the novel rocket nozzles, air intake design and thrust chamber cooling. ESA also helped to refine the overall SABRE design, looking at how it could be manufactured.<\/span><\/p>\n

On this day,\u00a0saw the contract signing by Franco Ongaro, ESA\u2019s Director of Technical and Quality Management, and Mark Thomas, Chief Executive Officer of Reaction Engines Ltd, to commit the next stage of ESA funding towards SABRE.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"Precooler<\/a>
Precooler testing for SABRE engine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cReaction Engines and ESA have been working together since 2008 to make the SABRE concept a reality,\u201d says Director Ongaro.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis new contract marks an important milestone in our continued collaboration to mature the design. It should take us to a point where we can expect to be testing a demonstrator engine in 2020.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In about two years, this latest phase should define the configuration of the engine as well as allow the detailed design of the prototype demonstrator engine to begin.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Once the feasibility of the technology was demonstrated via individual elements in 2012, the next step is to build a ground demonstrator engine in 2020, which will bring all these elements together to verify the performance of the complete engine cycle.<\/span><\/p>\n

The end result of this made-in-Europe technology would be low-cost, reliable and reusable engines, potentially enabling future vehicles that could perform the equivalent job of today\u2019s rockets while operating like an aircraft \u2013 revolutionising access to space.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A number of research and development projects followed through ESA, helping to demonstrate the feasibility of other elements, such as the novel rocket nozzles, air intake design and thrust chamber cooling.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",95,54,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",305,172,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",96,54,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/SABRE_engine_medium.jpg",150,85,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Culture<\/a> Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}